


in too deep.

by heartshapedcookie



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: I never write confession fics and you'll soon see why, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Pining Michael, a confession fic, a very very BAD confession fic but still, commission, meremy, post squip, shades of pining jeremy, there's aquariums. there's feelings. there's jellyfish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 05:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14037492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartshapedcookie/pseuds/heartshapedcookie
Summary: “Stingrays are kind of fucked up, yes?”“They’re just, like…” Jeremy paused, searching for a suitable point of comparison. “They’re just sea pancakes.”





	in too deep.

**Author's Note:**

> @tinylittle-femalechrist on Tumblr. this fic was a commission for the very sweet @colacharm, who wanted a meremy confession fic and got This instead which makes them braver than any us marine

The stingrays swam in lazy, concentric circles, their rubbery wings occasionally breaching the water’s surface and throwing an iridescent spray of droplets against the pool’s glass sides. Their flight was constant, uninterrupted, almost hypnotic. As crushingly boring as Michael found most of the aquarium, he had to admit that there was something soothing about the stingrays. At the very least, he hoped Jeremy was finding it soothing.

 

His best friend was standing by his side at the edge of the viewing pool, fidgeting with the oversized sleeves of his cardigan. Initially, he had been violent with the sleeves, yanking at threads and pushing his thumbnail between the soft seams and even periodically flexing his fingernails into his palms until hot-pink crescents rose to the surface of his skin, but the fidgeting had since downgraded itself to mild dandling. A hesitant, slightly dreamy smile crossed his face as one of the rays flapped with enough enthusiasm to send a few young spectators running.

 

“Stingrays are kind of fucked up, yes?” 

 

“They’re just, like…” Jeremy paused, searching for a suitable point of comparison. “They’re just sea pancakes.”

 

“Sea pancakes,” Michael repeated, unable to prevent an amused grin from cracking his cool facade. “What about those big-ass manta rays out there, just being huge and creepy in the ocean?”

 

“Sea blankets,” Jeremy replied without hesitation. His hands finally stilled and he quickly pocketed them before he could destroy his sleeves any further.

 

“Of course, what was I thinking?” 

 

There was a moment of comfortable silence between them as they watched the stingrays circle the pool. It was a drizzly Sunday afternoon, which meant the aquarium was crowded, but most of the people had moved on to the more attractive exhibits and left the boys to enjoy the observation pool in peace. Even though Michael had never liked the dinky aquarium—which was such a brazen tourist trap that most of the locals openly resented its existence—it had been his idea to drive down to the pier and visit today. As much as he hated the place and the general concept of paying to look at fish swim in circles when he could pull up any number of livestreams of fish doing exactly that for free, he knew Jeremy found the aquarium soothing. Something about the cobalt lights and dark, indigo halls and silent majesty of the marine life swimming by crushed even his mountain-high anxiety spikes and opened the windows in his mind, letting the blue aquarium light flow in.

 

“Thanks for taking me here,” Jeremy said quietly. He was still looking at the exhibit, but his head was tilted just enough to catch Michael’s attention; the tips of his ears were blush-kissed. “I know you don’t like it and you didn’t have to, but—”

 

“Dude.” Firm, but still gentle. “It’s okay. Wasn’t I the one who dragged you out of bed to come here?”

 

“Well, yeah, but…” He scuffed the toe of one Converse across the grungy, coral-printed carpet. “But I know it was just because you were worried about me being… ya know, terrible.”

 

“You’re not terrible,” Michael said automatically, shooting him a pointed glance. He had been working to curb the rate at which Jeremy self-deprecated, an effort that he had been forced to double down on in the wake of the Squip incident. Just as the tiny fragments of nanotechnology were still buried in his grey matter so was the Squip’s damaging influence and insulting words. “You having a couple bad days doesn’t make you terrible.”

 

He dug the toe of his shoe into the floor with more ferocity. “I still want to thank you for bringing me here.”

 

“Any time, man.” Michael took his arm and squeezed it reassuringly. “Not to ruin your good time, but like can we move on from the sea pancakes? I might literally die if I don’t look at something new.”

 

“Yeah, man, the sea pancakes are getting old.”

 

They walked into the next room, which housed a glass panel overlooking the jellyfish habitat. The delicate creatures floated through the electrifyingly blue enclosure, their membranes swelling and ebbing rhythmically. Michael was well aware that the jellyfish were Jeremy’s favorite part of the experience (his father had once had to physically remove him from the room when they were much younger, ignoring Jeremy’s protests for just five more minutes) and made a point in stopping at the balustrade so they could enjoy the aquatic view together.

 

“Jellyfish are so fucked up,” Jeremy said absently.

 

“They’re like, ninety-five-percent water.”

 

“See! That’s fucked up.” He planted his elbows on the railing and stared into the enclosure, the light blue of his eyes made voltaic by the overhead fluorescents. Michael made a noble attempt at nonchalance, but Jeremy’s eyes were absolutely magnetizing and he couldn’t help but let his gaze tarry. There was something about Jeremy’s face that held his eye, something about the gentle brow and the softness of his face in spite of the sharp bone structure. He wasn’t necessarily beautiful—Michael hesitated to use that word—but he was definitely… 

 

“Michael?”

 

_ Something. _

 

“Just thinking,” Michael supplied lameley. “Thinking… about jellyfish.”

 

Jeremy smiled. Maybe it was the absence of such a smile on his face for so many days or the abruptness of its appearance, but he was completely blindsided by it and left struggling to piece together a coherent thought. “Jellyfish?”

 

“Neither jelly nor fish.”  _ Nice one, Mell. What a hot take. _

 

“Just water and pink.”

 

“And tentacles. God said ‘don’t give them a brain or anything, just give them death ropes’,” Michael said, rediscovering the rhythm of their conversation. He had been lapsing more and more recently, coming perilously close to betraying himself. The tides had shifted and he found himself being dragged down by the undertow. Opportunities to come up for air were fewer and farther between.

 

“Yeah,” Jeremy murmured. A slight shudder, almost imperceptible, wracked his skinny frame; his knuckles tensed around the railing.

 

_ Pink,  _ Michael suddenly thought. He thought of grill marks and forks of pink lightning and shaky hands.  _ Fuck. _

 

“Hey.” He hesitantly touched Jeremy’s shoulder and smiled encouragingly. “Are you ready to hit the gift shop and go wild?”

 

“Actually, um…” Jeremy began, slowly releasing his grip on the railing. He glanced down at the floor, then back at the enclosure without allowing his eyes to rest on the boy at his side. “Can… Can I ask you something first?”

 

“Yeah, of course,” Michael replied. He didn’t know whether to panic or get excited or maybe just fake a heart attack, so he settled on what he hoped was a receptive, emotionally neutral expression. 

 

The toe of his worn Converse went to work at digging a hole in the carpet beneath their feet. “Um… are you mad at me, man?”

 

“What?” Michael laughed impulsively before realizing that Jeremy was completely serious and grabbing his wrist. “Wait, Jer, you think I’m mad at you?”

 

“Well, I know we had that big talk about everything that happened and we both apologized and said we were cool and I know I made you promise you’d tell me if you were still mad or upset or whatever, but lately you’ve been kind of like… I don’t know! I just thought maybe you were still mad and I-I just wanted to… make sure you weren’t because, like, you have every right to be mad and if there’s anything I can do to—”

 

“Whoa, whoa, Jeremy, stop,” Michael interrupted. As Jeremy caught his breath, it belatedly dawned on Michael that the lapses, the stares and the general weirdness that had tinged their every interaction since the hospital, hadn’t gone unnoticed. He had never been particularly good at lying and his attempts at doing so to keep his feelings hidden had only succeeded in feeding into Jeremy’s paranoia. “Jeremy, I’m not mad at you. I swear, I’m not… I’ve just… I’m not mad. At all. Seriously dude, I’m not and I would tell you if I was.”

 

Jeremy glanced down at Michael’s fingers, still curled around his wrist. “I just thought…”

 

“No, no, dude, I’m just—I’m thinking about a lot of stuff,” he offered. “Things are just different. And it’s probably made me act dumb, but I swear it’s not because I’m mad at you.”

 

“Different?”

 

“Like—you know what I mean. We’re hanging out with different people and we’re like… we’re different. But not in, like, a bad way or a good way or anything. Just… different.”

 

With a shaky exhalation, Jeremy finally met Michael’s eyes. “I know you didn’t want things to be different. That wasn’t fair.”

 

Michael wondered if it was possible to be smited for only praying when it came to especially difficult boss battles and begging for the ability to lie convincingly. “Sometimes different is good, man.”

 

“Even  _ this  _ different?” Jeremy asked, gesturing to himself.

 

A grin touched the corners of his mouth. “That’s actually my favorite thing that’s different.”

 

Color flared in his acne-dotted cheeks and he scoffed, looking away. “Yeah. Right.”

 

“Jer. Look at me.”

 

He obliged reluctantly. Michael felt dull heat creep up his neck at the sight of his best friend’s face, so familiar and so arresting that he was forced to steal a glimpse of the jellyfish to maintain his composure, which triggered the opening of some dormant cache of information. “There’s this one kind of jellyfish called the lion’s mane jellyfish. It’s, like, the biggest species in the world and I’m pretty sure its tentacles can grow to be like one-hundred-twenty feet long, which is like  _ the  _ most fucked up thing I’ve ever heard. I watched this Nat Geo thing about them and then later when I was in bed, I started getting freaked picturing this giant jellyfish just like drifting through the ocean, stuff getting trapped in its big-ass tentacles. So I texted you and was like ‘dude, what would we do if we saw this fucking thing out there in the ocean?’ and you said you’d probably die instantly and that I could use your body as a distraction to get away, and like… I don’t know. All I could think about was this giant jellyfish out there and the chances of us ever actually seeing one are nonexistent, but it could still happen and it made me think about stuff being possible. That stuff could happen and we’d know what to do because even though we’re like the champions of shitty ideas, we always end up getting through shit together. I’m, like, flying off the fucking rails with this story right now, but what I’m trying to say is that… I like stuff being different, even if it scares me. Because we’ll handle it. I’ll throw your corpse at a big-ass jellyfish, even though it’d be much better if you, like, didn’t die.”

 

Jeremy laughed softly. “I’ll try not to have a heart attack.”

 

“Thanks, buddy,” Michael said, feeling ridiculously dry-mouthed and trying not to choke on the growing lump in his throat. “Uhh… There’s something I should, like, say since it’s the whole reason I just held you hostage and told you about jellyfish. I, um, I kind of have… feelings. For you. Like, real feelings.”

 

“Huh?” Then Jeremy blinked, trapping shards of glassy blue light from the enclosure window in his eyes. “Wait… like,  _ feelings?” _

 

“Uh. Yeah.”

 

The space between them seemed infinite. Michael recognized the tug of the undertow, the frothing of the waves above him; his lungs ached for oxygen. Because Jeremy was just  _ standing  _ there, almost but not quite looking at him with those eyes like sea glass, and the water was churning and he was going to drown—

 

Jeremy leaned over and kissed the side of Michael’s face. Judging by the somewhat awkward placement of the kiss, he had initially aimed for his mouth, only to change his mind at the last moment. He immediately reared back, his face florid and his hands desperately clawing at one another in a sort of violent fidget. “I—That was fucking dumb, I just—”

 

“Dude, I know you can kiss better than that,” Michael said, smiling in spite of the brief pulse of what felt like tears behind his eyes. His chest swelled with air and he breathed out, relief unlocking the tense sinews of his body. “So… can I safely assume that my sexy jellyfish story convinced you to give me a chance?”

 

“Shut up,” Jeremy retorted with a delighted grin.

 

They both laughed, albeit breathlessly, and it wasn’t long before the hand that had been closed around Jeremy’s wrist found his fingers instead. It was a sweaty experience, but neither boy minded. Michael exhaled again, shaking the last of the seafoam from his heart.

 

“Come on, dude. I’m gonna treat you to the aquarium gift shop.”   
  


“We’re not even dating and you’re already buying my affection with seashell necklaces? I bagged a good one, I guess.”

 

Michael squeezed his hand, wringing the vestigial tension from both of their arms. “I bagged a better one.”

 

“Shut up, for real.”

  
_He could breathe again._


End file.
